


water on hands, salt on hands

by sparksandsalt



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Post-Time Skip, but kita just wants to farm, implied one-sided atsukita and sunakita
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24478225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparksandsalt/pseuds/sparksandsalt
Summary: From the moment Suna slides behind the counter after closing to ask if he can make an onigiri too, Osamu knows he’ll be absolute shit at it.(Osamu, Suna, and somewhat fraught onigiri-making.)
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 33
Kudos: 406
Collections: One shots, food fiction for the heart





	water on hands, salt on hands

**Author's Note:**

> (T rating only because of swearing and one slightly suggestive joke)  
> (It's mostly just charged onigiri-making)

**MSBY Lucky #13 · @tsumu_miya** _  
_ Behold, the only useful thing @OnigiriMiya has done for me in his entire life  
_[Photo: Four large, assorted onigiri on ceramic plates.]_  
29 Replies 445 Retweets 2.2k Likes

 **EJP libero owes me a chuupet · @sunarin0125**  
Four? I’m going to @ your team nutritionist  
3 Replies 22 Retweets 407 Likes

 **MSBY Lucky #13 · @tsumu_miya**  
I DIDN’T EAT ‘EM ALL I bought ‘em for me,  
Shouyou-kun, Omi-kun, and Bokkun!!!  
And you’re just jealous that we ran into Kita-san  
there and you didn’t :kissyface:  
9 Retweets 316 Likes

* * *

From the moment Suna slides behind the counter after closing to ask if he can make an onigiri too, Osamu knows he’ll be absolute shit at it.

Suna will complain that the rice is too hot to hold, for one. Then, he’ll be sloppy with the proportion of rice to salt to fillings. He’ll put in less than the minimum effort to shape the onigiri into a triangle; Osamu wonders if Suna will lose interest by the time it comes to wrapping it in seaweed.

Onigiri are agonizingly simple, Osamu has come to learn over the past six years. Though he thinks of new fillings he’d like to try almost every day—cheese or bulgogi, marinated enoki mushroom or corn mayo—onigiri are ultimately only a handful of ingredients. He must do every step properly, because there’s nowhere to hide.

Osamu watches as his predictions prove true one by one and Suna is left cradling a haphazard mound of rice, salt, pickled plum, and nori. After a beat, he holds it out to Osamu.

“I did it,” Suna says.

“You sure did somethin’,” Osamu replies. He slides a plate over the counter, and Suna gingerly places his creation atop it. It falls apart immediately. “Stop messin’ around, Suna, you’re wastin’ my ingredients.”

Suna’s face remains placid, but his voice is light and amused. “I’m not messing around. You’d still eat this, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s a lot I’d eat but wouldn’t see fit to sell,” Osamu counters. “How’d you get to twenty-three without learnin’ how to make onigiri?”

Suna hums as he digs out the umeboshi with a lazy finger to snack on it, and Osamu knows that’s all the answer he’ll get. He returns to his own delivery order.

Water on hands. Salt on hands. Rice, salmon, rice. Press and toss between angled palms. Fold over the seaweed just so. A pinch more salmon on top.

Osamu places it into the row of neat, uniform onigiri on a side tray. He wipes his hands on a wet cloth, prepared to make the next, when Suna says, “Hey, let me try again.”

Water on hands. Salt on hands. “You feel good about wastin’ Kita-san’s rice like that?”

Osamu glances up from the salt dish. Suna’s expression discloses nothing, but his gold-green eyes are trained on Osamu’s face.

“Show me how to do it, then,” Suna says. The razor edge of a challenge slices through his last word.

Osamu holds out his hands, and Suna, just centimeters beside him, follows. Water on hands. Salt on hands. Rice--

“It’s hot,” Suna complains. “I make my money with these hands, I can’t be burning them.”

Osamu snorts. “Sunarin, you think warm rice can hurt you any more than stuffin’ a spike can?”

“It’s hot,” Suna repeats as he mirrors Osamu, wiping his fingertips on the wet cloth and picking up a pitted umeboshi from a plastic container. The tone of his voice does not deviate at all when he adds, “I heard Kita-san visited yesterday.”

Rice, salted kombu, rice. Press and toss between angled palms.

“That he did,” Osamu replies, his own tone masked with disinterest.

Shinsuke Kita had walked in with a gust of February cold just the day before, a thousand-year old deity in clean, worn coveralls and rubber boots. He bowed to Osamu from the doorway, and patiently waited until the customer Osamu had been serving paid and left before approaching.

 _Good afternoon, I came to check that you were usin’ my rice properly,_ he said by way of greeting.

 _I wouldn’t dare not to,_ Osamu replied. He wondered what kind of blessings would be bestowed upon the shop by Kita’s mere presence.

Kita laughed, in a way that sounded simultaneously paternal and ancient and just a shade older than boyish. _I know, Osamu._

Kita sat at the counter seat closest to the wall, quietly drinking barley tea and eating senbei as customers cycled in and out. The eyes following Osamu’s hands would have petrified him years ago, but now, Osamu knew he had nothing to fear.

Water on hands. Salt on hands. Rice, tarako, rice.

Simple and proper. Nowhere to hide, even if he wanted to.

They chatted about business in the lulls between customers until Atsumu, with his usual cohort of Black Jackals, burst in near closing time with complaints of post-practice hunger pangs. Atsumu had frozen at the threshold--because Atsumu _still did_ have something to fear from Kita, unlike Osamu--when Kita tilted his head distastefully at the noise.

Kita swept his rice cracker crumbs into a napkin and asked Osamu for a clean dishcloth to wipe down the counter.

 _It’s only ‘Tsumu and his buddies,_ Osamu said.

Kita tilted his head again, this time at Osamu. It was just as devastating as Osamu remembered. _They’re still customers. Do it properly, Osamu._

“I think I watched Kiyoomi Sakusa fall in love yesterday,” Osamu says as he presses the rice into a triangle. “Why does Kita-san think he has to do things like wipin’ down counters and seats before he leaves? He’s not one of my workers.”

Suna grins widely. “Komori always complains about Sakusa going on and on about his new crushes. I guess I should warn him about the oncoming Kita-san onslaught.”

“Komori isn’t used to you goin’ on and on about Kita-san yet?”

“Why would I talk to him about Kita-san?” Suna asks. His gaze is aimed at the counter as he attempts to center his onigiri on a rectangle of seaweed, but Osamu finds tension in his rounded shoulders.

 _Still dangerous territory, then,_ Osamu thinks.

“It was pretty obvious that you were always watchin’ him, way back when,” Osamu says, light as he can manage. “Though, I s’ppose you were far from the only one watchin’ Kita-san. I still find myself tryin’ to figure him out sometimes.”

Suna makes a noncommittal noise as he presses a pinch of shredded kombu into the window of rice peeking out from the seaweed. He holds his completed onigiri up to eye level.

“Better,” Suna decides, even though rice falls out at the seaweed’s seams.

“What’s it so big for?” Osamu disagrees as he holds his perfectly triangular onigiri next to Suna’s. Suna’s fingers are only a few millimeters longer than Osamu’s, and he had watched Suna scoop more-or-less the same amount of rice as he had. There’s no reason Suna’s onigiri should be so much _larger._

Osamu reaches over to press it more firmly together, and frowns at how compact the rice becomes under the slight pressure. For a professional volleyball player, Suna doesn’t exert much muscle strength into any other activity. Osamu remembers more than one occasion when Suna had flung a mechanical pencil or a half-eaten snack package into Osamu’s face while gesturing, just because he had been too lazy to tighten his grip.

“Could you put a little more of your muscles into your onigiri-makin’, Rintarou-kun?” Osamu asks. “I know you’ve got ‘em. Or are you gettin’ weak?”

Suna swipes at Osamu’s face and knocks the cap off his head. Osamu is about to protest when Suna straightens himself to his full height--with Suna’s constant slouching, Osamu had almost forgotten that Suna is taller than him--and shoves a hand into Osamu’s hat-flattened hair, furiously mussing it.

“You have rice all over your hands, what the _fuck,_ ” Osamu swears at the same time Suna remarks, genuinely surprised, “Oh, wow, your hair’s a lot softer now.”

Osamu herds Suna toward the kitchen sink with his shoulder while Suna cackles. “Yours and Atsumu’s hair felt like straw in high school, you know. Congrats on having human hair again! Atsumu’s is probably completely fried by now, but at least he learned how to use toner, right?”

“Wash your _hands,_ ” Osamu commands, picking stray grains of rice out of his hair.

Suna is still snickering as he washes up, grin so wide that his eyes are nearly squeezed shut. Suna rarely laughs this hard for good-natured reasons, but Osamu still finds himself a little exhilarated at the rare occurrence.

“Y’know, Kita-san’s hair color was similar to mine in high school,” Osamu says, combing his hair back with his fingers. “Natural, though, so I bet it wasn’t anywhere near as dry. Can’t imagine anyone darin’ to touch it to find out.”

Suna composes himself back to his normal impassivity. The abrupt end of his laughter leaves the shop silent except for the sound of water hitting the stainless steel basin and the squeak of the faucet shutting off.

“You’re bringing up Kita-san an awful lot today,” Suna says coolly, knocking Osamu’s shoulder with his own on his way back to the counter. It’s only a statement, but to Osamu, it almost sounds like a dare.

Osamu follows, retrieves his hat from the floor, and continues the delivery order. Suna copies him without asking for permission.

Water on hands. Salt on hands.

“You brought up Kita-san first,” Osamu says after a moment. He sounds almost petulant--almost like Atsumu, Osamu thinks ruefully. He doesn’t remember which of them had said Kita’s name first today, truthfully, but it’s a fair guess. Kita’s name always hangs in the air between them, silent and undeniable, until one of them crumples under the weight of it.

“No, you brought him up first, when you said I was wasting his rice,” Suna says.

Ah. Osamu’s guess had been wrong. Still, Osamu had seen his brother’s photo and the conversation in the comments below. From the moment Suna had ambled into the shop this afternoon, two weekends too early for the MSBY-EJP Osaka match and clad in coat, sweatshirt, and jeans rather than an EJP jersey, Osamu knew. Just as it had in high school, Suna’s presence brought along the suggestion of Kita with it.

Rice, salted kombu, rice.

“You’re right, though, I was always watching Kita-san at Inarizaki,” Suna says, interrupting Osamu’s thoughts. He plucks an umeboshi from a container and tosses it into his mouth. “I was always watching--but how would you know? Unless you’re saying that _you_ were always watching _me.”_

Press and toss between angled palms.

Suna continues, mouth puckered around the sour pickled plum, “Because, maybe, if you were watching Kita-san too, our lines of sight would have crossed a few times. That’s what happens when two people are always watching the same person. I recall seeing way too much of Atsumu’s dopey eyes during second year, but I don’t recall seeing much of yours.”

Fold over the seaweed just so.

“Osamu.”

Shit. Osamu likes to think that he’s cleverer than Atsumu--and he is, he’s pretty sure, just by dint of knowing when to keep his mouth shut more often than his brother does--but he’s ultimately from the same knuckleheaded stock. Rintarou Suna is not a knucklehead. Rintarou Suna has made a career out of his talent for manipulating defenses, and has always been able to outmaneuver Osamu under the table when he puts in the slightest effort.

_“Osamu-kuuun.”_

A pinch more kombu on top.

An onigiri slides into Osamu’s line of sight. It’s only approximately triangular and the nori is covered with stray grains of rice, but it’s closer to one of Osamu’s onigiri than any previous attempt.

“Eat it,” Suna says.

Osamu wipes his hands on the dishcloth, picks up the onigiri, and bites into it. There’s too much salt. Kita’s rice, however, is impeccable as always; Osamu’s staff had cooked it well, and Suna’s leisurely touch means that not a single grain is smashed. Osamu finishes it off, not because he’s hungry or finds it particularly delicious, but because he does not know what else to do in the silence.

Suna slings an arm around Osamu’s shoulders, wrist crooked back to prevent his rice-and-salt-covered hand from touching Osamu’s hair again. Osamu glances at him from the corner of his vision. Suna’s predator eyes are narrowed, calculating and searching.

Simple. Nowhere to hide.

Osamu can’t imagine that Suna will find anything he doesn’t already know.

Something devious flits across Suna’s expression, and before Osamu can prepare himself, Suna buckles his knees so his entire weight bears down on the arm hooked around Osamu’s neck. Osamu swears around his mouthful of rice as he throws one arm around Suna’s back and braces the other on the counter.

Suna throws his head back, cackling again, as the near-empty container of umeboshi clatters to the ground near their feet.

“You’re a pain in the ass, Rin,” Osamu gasps as he finally finishes chewing Suna’s onigiri. “What’re your core muscles for, stand _up.”_

Delight and victory play at the corners of Suna’s mouth as he slides his other arm around Osamu’s neck, still maddeningly careful not to dirty his hair with his hands again. Osamu realizes, belatedly, that he has Suna half-pinned to the counter with their faces only centimeters apart.

“Sure, I watched Kita-san all throughout high school, and maybe I do annoy Komori when I bring him up now,” Suna says evenly, breath warm on Osamu’s chin. “But there’s a reason I’m here, and not in some rice field a prefecture away.”

 _God,_ Osamu thinks. _Buddha. Kita-san. Why is this dangerous territory? It’s just Sunarin. It’s just Suna._

There’s color on Suna’s face, Osamu thinks, but his expression betrays nothing else. “Though _you’re_ the one annoying _me_ by going on and on about Kita-san today when I’m the one in front of you, Osamu.”

 _Do it properly, Osamu,_ Kita’s voice repeats, a household deity tucked in the corner seat of his wood-paneled shop.

Osamu closes the distance between them.

It’s awkward, and his cap falls off again, and he has to strain his neck too far forward because Suna refuses to engage his leg muscles to accommodate Osamu or even _stand._ Still, Suna tilts his head in a way that devastates Osamu in a completely different way than Kita had the day before; his forearms, warm at the back of Osamu’s neck, tense and shift. Suna tastes faintly like pickled plum.

When Osamu pulls away, Suna whispers, “This would’ve been really fucking embarrassing if I guessed wrong and you were just in love with Kita-san too.”

“You’ve gotta let me finish this order, Rin,” Osamu sighs, and he can feel the rumble of Suna’s laughter against his chest. He ducks out of Suna’s looped arms and lets him fall back against the stainless steel work surface, red umeboshi scattered around his feet.

“You were supposed to passionately take me on the onigiri counter,” Suna calls after him, voice almost bored.

Osamu turns on the kitchen faucet. “It’s a food prep area, that’d be unsanitary.”

“If I were Sakusa or Kita-san, your attention to proper health and safety would be very enticing.” Suna meanders up to Osamu’s side at the sink again, obnoxiously leaning his weight against him while he rinses his hands. “How was my onigiri, by the way?”

“I wouldn’t hire you, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

“But you did eat all of it.”

“You told me to eat it, and I’m not in the way of wastin’ food made ‘specially for me.”

“What a benevolent soul you are.”

“You’ve gotta let me finish this order, Rin,” Osamu repeats, herding Suna out of the kitchen, past the counter, and back into the dining area. He ignores the obvious wrinkles in the back of Suna’s sweatshirt from where he had grasped it earlier, and watches Suna shuffle his way to one of the seats. As he fills a cup with hot tea and places it in front of Suna with a satisfying thump, Osamu considers how different Suna’s eyes feel on his hands than Kita’s had.

It itches a little, but pleasantly. Nowhere to hide, and nothing to fear -- but thrilling, nonetheless. He begins to wrap his onigiri in plastic and arrange them in a cardboard box, one-by-one.

-

“Osamu,” Suna says after a surprising length of well-behaved silence, “I want an umeboshi onigiri.”

Osamu looks up at him from over the partition. Suna’s face is as unreadable as always.

“You knocked all the umeboshi onto the floor, I’d have to open a whole new jar in the back to get more,” Osamu says.

Suna smiles so that his dark eyelashes fan over his cheeks, and slurps loudly from his teacup.

* * *

**EJP libero owes me a chuupet · @sunarin0125**  
Hey @tsumu_miya  
Osamu doesn’t make me pay for mine  
:foxface: :onigiri: :heart:  
_[Photo: In the foreground, a hand holds out an umeboshi onigiri. In the background, out-of-focus, Osamu Miya works behind the counter at Onigiri Miya.]_  
56 Replies 821 Retweets 4.9k Likes

 **MSBY Lucky #13 · @tsumu_miya**  
WHAT  
@OnigiriMiya WHAT GIVES  
I THOUGHT WE WERE BROTHERS  
21 Replies 109 Retweets 1.1k Likes

 **MSBY Lucky #13 · @tsumu_miya**  
ALSO WHY’RE YOU IN OSAKA RIGHT NOW RINTAROU  
@komori_mty @washiotatsuki @EJPRaijinOfficial  
COME COLLECT YOUR MB  
28 Replies 65 Retweets 788 Likes

**Author's Note:**

> -Find me on Twitter [@leeehama](https://twitter.com/leeehama) (main) or [@sparksandsalt](https://twitter.com/sparksandsalt) (anitwt)!  
> -I do not fully comprehend Suna, Osamu, or SunaOsa, but I had the thoughts “Pretty much all our external insight into Kita is via Suna so he must have watched him a lot” and “everyone, including me, pines for Kita” so I had to write fic  
> -Why didn’t I just write SunaKita? I do not know. I think I wanted onigiri very badly.  
> -I had to write a food-related romance again for a project because I think that’s my brand now, so those themes were on my mind... but at least “food + yearning” is a pretty cool pigeonhole to be in!!


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